By Don McCormick

City of Kimberley Mayor

Is there anyone out there who does NOT want to see new money come to Kimberley so your taxes are reasonable?

Or to see well-paying jobs beyond government jobs? If people want to move to Kimberley – and they do, where are they going to work? Does anyone think that this is going to be easy? Or that we will not need to make choices?

There is so much misinformation being spread about the Marysville bench and such hyperbole as ‘the industrialization of our recreation lands’. It is disappointing that something so important to the community as the re-building of our industrial tax base is being positioned as a bad thing.

I have tried to let the OCP process play itself out, but the longer this goes on the more misinformed people are getting. Here is the nature of our choices:
• Industrial taxes are needed to take the upward pressure off of the residential and business tax rates as infrastructure renewal and demand for city services grows; no one I have talked to wants to reduce city service levels;
• Kimberley’s growing population needs jobs to attract and retain young families; our remote workers also need the choice to work at home;
• The only land that the city owns and controls that is not in a residential area is that piece of the bench. It is across from the transfer station and abuts what will become one of the busiest roads in the city; it is not a desired piece of land for anything but business lands; it has never been zoned as recreation;
• This property does NOT include any of the VolksMarch trail! That well used trail remains as it is today.
• The Teck lands, where the concentrator and fertilizer plant were located – the east side of Jim Ogilvie Way, will not be in play for at least 10 years; first of all, these lands are owned by Teck, not the city; I have had several conversations with Teck – locally and at corporate office in Vancouver. They understand and like the business park vision for that land, and will work with us to make that an eventual reality; however, we need to negotiate an ownership model that works for both of us, find a developer (Teck is not the developer) and service the land. All of this after environmental certification – which has taken 10 years or more with the most recent three properties; this land is not an option today;
• Attracting the first business is the most difficult, and we have local boys who own a clean tech business in Calgary who want to move that business here; the window of opportunity for them is now, not in 10 years; their type of business creates clusters – similar businesses who set up shop near one another to create synergy – so they will attract other businesses;
• Kimberly’s goal in participating in the Cranbrook-Kimberley Development Initiative (www.ckdi.com) is to attract new tax money and jobs from exactly this type of business; we have nine Kimberley businesses that have invested cash in CKDI because they believe this is important for the community; CKDI will spend $400K in the next three years attracting this type of business and if we want to play we need to have land available;
• 50% of the City of Kimberley footprint is greenspace; we have about 200 or so trails all over the city that are used by our visitors and residents – including Bootleg Golf Course and Rails2Trails in Marysville. We do not lack trail options, but we do lack business lands;
• Everything we do should be ‘mindful of all’ – choices that are in the best interest of our taxpayers and the entire community.

There are many moving part to this strategy, making it fairly complicated. Our city planner is the keeper of the OCP, so please… if you are unsure of what is happening please call or meet with him. I am also available for calls anytime.

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